A Lump in the Road: My Personal Journey with a Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS)

By Kate Navarra

Kate thought she had it figured out. Life so far was pretty straight forward with only a few challenges. When Kate turned 40, an unclear spot was noted on her very first mammogram. She was diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS), a type of cancer she had never heard of, even though there are about 60,000 new cases of it (that is 1 in 5 of every new breast cancer diagnosis) each year in the United States. DCIS is the presence of abnormal cells inside the milk ducts of the breast. It is considered the earliest form of breast cancer and is noninvasive, as it has not spread to invade other parts of the breast. It has close to 100% survival rate. Women who are diagnosed with DCIS live in this sort of limbo between being survivors of cancer and not having "real" invasive cancer that requires chemotherapy and/or radiation. But the tests are similar, the waiting for results is identical and the emotional ups and downs are just as gutting. Kate's journey through a year of cancer diagnoses, doctor's appointments, decisions, surgeries and recoveries sheds light on her own personal journey through the emotions of cancer. Though no woman chooses the same cancer treatment journey, all will face anger, tears, weakness, laughter, strength and solidarity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098371883

Book preview

End?

Introduction

May 2019

I thought I had things pretty well figured out. I was so many things. I was a nearly forty-year-old mother of two. I was a wife. I was a friend. I was a historian. I was an author. I was a stay-at-home mom who was rarely at home. I had a routine. I had a schedule for me and my kids. I could often be found wandering the various group fitness classes at the YMCA; planning classroom functions for my children’s elementary school; or helping with a large or small project for the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA). (Who am I kidding? They are always large projects.)

Then I turned forty. As it is for most other people, my birthday was just another day on the calendar, another choice of restaurant and cake to celebrate the big four-oh. But just after I turned that ripe old age, I started a journey I’d never anticipated taking. This book is about the emotional journey I took after being diagnosed with Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS), a not-well-known, but fairly common cancer that affects over 50,000 women a year in the United States and has an almost 100% survival rate. While this latter statistic is good news, those of us who are diagnosed with DCIS live in limbo between being cancer survivors and not having had a real (invasive) cancer that requires radiation or chemotherapy and all the side effects. But the tests we endure are similar, and the waiting is identical, and the emotional ups and downs are heart-wrenching.

My diagnosis came unexpectedly, as cancer often does. And while I, of course, never meant to have cancer, I also never meant to sit down and write a book about what happened after my diagnosis. My writing emerged organically when a friend, another Kate who lives across the country, asked me how I was dealing with being diagnosed with cancer. It was too much to text. And phone calls were difficult due to time zone differences and the fact that I found myself unable to speak out loud about all the emotions and fears I faced when I got my diagnosis. I also wasn’t (at the time) ready to talk about cancer in front of my children.

Hearing my concerns, my friend said, Why don’t you write a blog?

A blog? Like something on the internet that anyone could see? I thought about it for a couple of days and decided to start journaling instead. Then came the constant questions from more close friends who lived far away: How are you? Have you been keeping busy? Did you hear back from the doctor yet?

It wasn’t that these questions were a bother, but it turned out that being able to report on my feelings, most recent test results, and my emotions in dealing with it all in a way that people could access on their own was a good idea. So, I put my journaling into a blog. A Lump in the Road was born.

Blogging quickly became a necessity in my daily life. I needed to be able to swear, to say out loud that I was afraid to die, and to disclose emotions I didn’t feel comfortable sharing with my closest relatives and friends out of fear that they were as scared as I was. Writing—shared or unshared—has always helped me better understand who I am. During my cancer journey, it has been a crucial part of my healing process and my recovery.

As you read this book, please keep in mind that this is my personal journey. Just as not every person chooses the same path on a journey, not everyone handles a diagnosis in the same way. In one year, I won a battle with cancer. I lost two boobs, but I walked away with a voice that was stronger than ever. It’s that voice I share with you here.

Kate Navarra

Sammamish, Washington

August 2020

1

The Cliff

Summer 1996

There are challenging moments in life when you see a flash of what is important—the proverbial life passes before your eyes moments. It is then when you recognize what defines you, the instances that are so important they’re etched into your brain. In times like this we often discover we are stronger than we ever knew we could be, but only after breaking into a million pieces, wallowing in fear and self-doubt, and finally finding peace. I have been to this type of precipice twice so far, grasping at air, struggling to hold on.

These precipice moments came at two completely different phases of my life with different expectations and different people surrounding and supporting me. The first was during a backpacking trip through Alaska at age seventeen. The second was during my journey with a cancer diagnosis at age forty. And while these two parts of my life may seem wildly unrelated, in retrospect they are quite similar. In both journeys, I found myself and discovered how strong I am.

I took a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) trip to Alaska during high school. The decision to backpack in the Brooks Range of Alaska with sixteen other teenagers came quite lightly—in fact, I hardly thought about it at all. I signed up to go after a very difficult junior year. I suppose you could define me as one of those students who had a few good friends, but one who spent most of her time studying. (I honestly loved homework and the satisfaction of completing something well and on time.) But even though I thrived on academic challenge, in my junior year I took four Advanced Placement courses: AP English, AP Biology, AP Physics, and AP Calculus. The work never stopped. As soon as the bell rang, I was home making flash cards, reading textbooks, taking notes, and highlighting my workbooks. My mom knocked on my door every night at 6:15 p.m. for dinner, then I would go right back to studying until bedtime.

I felt compelled to keep up this pace because junior year of high school was a year of tests. I felt like I lost myself in the question of what college was right for me, the expectations of the people around me (family, teachers, friends), and preparation for the four AP tests. I was never any good at standardized tests. I could read, write, comprehend, and discuss just about anything in my classes, but when it came to answering a multiple-choice test question, I never felt confident I could get it right. There always seemed to be two correct answers or none at all. Studying for these tests did not leave much time for socializing or relaxing or finding hobbies.

When it came to decide on an activity for the summer after the SATs and AP tests, my mom literally held up three brochures in my doorway. I couldn’t even tell you what two of the brochures were for. I only remember that I pointed to the one with the beautiful blue and purple skies with green meadows and white snowcapped mountains, not even reading what it was about.

I should have read more carefully, since NOLS would not offer the relaxing vacation I needed. NOLS is a nonprofit global wilderness school based in Lander, Wyoming that helps people step into leadership roles by experiencing the outdoors. It offers wilderness medicine courses and data-informed curricula so you can build hands-on outdoor skills through real-life scenarios. Participants learn the basics of packing a backpack, first aid, gear upkeep, and back-country cooking. Today, NOLS offers over 1,000 courses of varying lengths from two days to a semester in thirty different countries. The lessons in leadership are presented in the context of remote wilderness training on a thirty-day backpacking trek through untouched beauty. My first day with NOLS entailed seven miles of bushwhacking through the Alaskan wilderness, followed by a group meeting about setting goals and expectations.

That’s some vacation.

My journal entries from the first day indicate more emotions than I thought I could have felt at seventeen. Overwhelmed. Hopeless. Inept. I wrote:

June 21, 1996

There is an unusual number of people who are experienced, really experienced. I thought I could handle these feelings, but then came the self-doubt and total fatigue. And this is only the second day. I guess I am just scared that I won’t make it to the end.

Among my backpacking mates were young adults who had experimented with drugs, fallen in love, failed out of college, played drums in a band, tried to commit suicide, got straight A’s, and were star soccer players. At first it felt like I had nothing in common with anyone I would be out in the middle of nowhere with. But in the coming weeks, and after sharing close quarters in small tents, I found we all had challenges to overcome.

Cleve was one of the NOLS instructors. He’d had an office job forever, he said, and decided he needed to change his perspective and liked what NOLS had to offer: being in nature and meeting new people. He taught us first aid and gave us leadership examples at every turn. Erica was another NOLS instructor. She graduated from Brown University and was not sure what she wanted to do in life, so she trained to be a wilderness and leadership instructor until she figured it out. She taught plant life and biology of tundra. Both Erica and Cleve were the first adult mentors I had ever met who swore freely and encouraged us to do so, as well. It was important to communicate respectfully throughout our expedition; how we did that, however, was our choice.

These instructors got paid $40 a day to lead seventeen young adults through untouched wilderness and make sure they made it out alive and well-trained to survive and be leaders. But they were doing what they loved. They got to see the whole group graduate from a course and gain life experience. They got to watch the transformation of young adults.

As for the other students on the trip, there were people who immediately stood out as leaders. Maybe it was because they were taller, or maybe they had an air of confidence. Eric, who was my age, was one of those people. He was a championship soccer player from New Hampshire. He seemed to have his life on track.

My initial thoughts about Brent were that he was quiet but strong. He was the first one to offer a hand when you fell in a river or slipped in the mud. And I did both of those things many times!

Jessie was a trained ballet dancer from Louisiana. Over the course of the trip, she sprained both of her ankles. We were constantly soaking our feet in glacially fed water together. At some point on the trip, she developed a 101-degree fever and the mung, something our leaders referred to as a sickness including vomiting and diarrhea.

Casey was quiet and kept to himself most of the time. He was from San Diego and developed a great sense of how to cook in the wilderness. Casey was adept at making pancakes, cooking them over an open fire in one pan. He would make syrup using brown sugar and water. I remember once he attempted hash browns using leftover powdered potatoes and spices. He also got such a bad sunburn on his nose during the first days we were in the bush that he had white tape covering it in every photo we took.

Katie introduced herself as wanting to become more self-sufficient because she suffered from being stuck in a dependent relationship with a man who was not nice to her. She was so confident in knowing that she wanted to move forward. She wanted to be a massage therapist. She was not hesitant about sharing her feelings and letting her guard down. I admired her ability to share such personal things with a bunch of people she had just met.

It was like nature brought us all together. We were strangers from completely different parts of the country, with different backgrounds and experiences. And yet, in the breathtaking and terrifying greatness of Alaska, we were all the same in one particular way: we needed each other to get the most from the whole experience.

Each day in the field, a student was chosen to be leader. The leader’s role was to choose a map reader and then decide the route. Everyone would have at least two chances at these roles throughout the month-long trip.

On my day as leader, I utterly failed.

My objective was to get the group over the pass we had stared at for three days and hike to the airstrip where our pilot would meet us with re-rations and fuel. The day started out wonderfully with a beautiful sunrise, a brisk morning, and breathtaking scenery. In front of us, we had a pretty easy hike along grassy hummocks and meandering sandbars. After walking a few miles, most of us had taken our outer layer off and were wearing just our long underwear with a fleece vest